Fanfic: DC Cataclysm 2: Rage Against the Writers

     The throne can be a lonely place, and very boring, for an immortal it can be especially boring. For her, she has sat upon this throne for centuries, possibly literally. To eleviate her boredom she would wander; her own world at times; however she is far too well known as the god-queen of the entire world, so such travels are rarely anything but extravagant shows of power. No, she ventures to other worlds, has little adventures to eleviate her boredom.

 

   On this day she travels to a rather mundane little world. There is nothing special about this world, sure it has its wars, history, gods, demons, hidden faerie folk, but really so just pretty much every variation of this little blue and brown marbel. She has chosen to appear here in a rare form; her actual form. She does appear in local attire, possessing some person or construct so as to limit her power as she is apt to do when “playing” on a world. No she is here as herself, black leather like boots, corset top, tight pants, and black cape with a red interior lining. She is Rhulan the sorceress, a name that means everything back home, but nothing here, except somehow to one man who waves her over. Across the thralls of teenagers, children, and adults dressed in all manner of costumes based on characters from TV shows, movies, anime, cartoons, and comic books. It is this last one that matters here, for it is a stand of old comics whose proprieter has waved her over.

 

   The somewhat obese man smirks and says, “Oh yeah, that’s it all right. I bet everyone thinks you’re dressed as some generic sorceress chick, like using the convention as an excuse to larp am I right?”

 

   His look is both oddly appreciative and disturbingly leery.

 

  “Rhulan that Celestial Sorceress chick right?”

 

  “What?” asks Rhulan, “how do you know that name?”

 

  “I got all five issues she’s in.” says the man, “not really major issues, we got the one from the 1980 where she fought the Justice League, that was a three parter.”

 

   He puts out a comic, the woman in the book has wavier hair that is a much lighter shade of red, the costume is a dark brown, but the events…they are almost exactly what happened. Her flirting with Super-girl and Wonder Woman is missing among a few things, but its been so long she hardly remembers herself the exact details

 

   “here’s the second appearance,” says the man, “an issue of the Defenders from Marvel Comics in 1992. Back when the Hulk was having all kinds of psychological issues.”

 

   In this one her hair is straight and clothese black, but her eyes are green and her bust is massive and waist a little too thin, not to mention her feet are always pointy and she’s constantly flying like she’s about to knee someone in the crotch.

 

   “Weird,” says the man, “that DC comics and Marvel comics would use the same character, even use the same name. But they were on better terms back then.”

 

   Somethins is amiss to Rhulan, the dates are backwards, she remembers fighting the green behemoth before the so called Justice League, but this is clearly a case of psionic reality overlap influencing so…

 

   “Shame they stopped using her for almost twenty years,”

 

   “Huh?” says Rhulan.

 

   “Yeah,” says the man, “I heard she was planned originally to be a major villain in this three companies cross-over, DC’s Amithyst, Marvel’s Thor, and even She-ra were all going to fight her as part of this cross-over, but it fell through. The guy who wrote the DC comic said something about her being his character, and the Marvel guy claimed she was his, that they weren’t the same character, and neither would back down, so it all fell through.”

 

  She shuffles out another issue, “yeah, best part is both sides dropped her from future storylines and replaced her Morgan le fay, yeah, both companies used their version of a character they ripped off from King Arthur instead of this crazy powerful chick; which makes it really sad what they did to her twenty years later.”

 

   “When she fought the Justice League again,” says Rhulan remembering what it would be.

 

   “Yeah,” says the man, “two retcons later and I guess someone at DC decided she existed again. First she popped up in Young Justice, man the fans were not happy about this character they thought was new totally jabbering the Young Justice team. Heh heh, then she’s back right away in Superman and Justice League…man it was like a left over from the previous retcon, people were afraid they were about to do another retcon, but nope, they were just nerfing this old school villain. Weird though, because she never came back after they went through all the trouble of having the Presence…AKA the writers, decide that her better powers can’t work anymore so they don’t endanger the DC universe.”

 

   “This all happened,” thinks Rhulna, “nerfed? As in reduced my power so as not to be a threat,”

 

   “Its how it goes,” says the man, “if someone is a real threat to like Superman…and Dr. Fate, and the Spectre, they have to nerf them, and bad, if they want to keep using them. I heard they were going to bring her back, have her be a villain in the new Amithyst book, and make her a lesbian, can you believe it, like she was going to be after Amithyst and Super-girl, and even Wonder Woman, to make them a harem or something. But some gay rights group got wind of it, felt the story was too demeaning and making lesbians look evil. So get this, instead of just scrapping that part of the story, they scrap the whole thing. The guy from Marvel got wind of it too and sued DC for reusing the character, it didn’t go anywhere, but they permanently retired her after that.”

 

    ******

 

    Rhulan purchased the books, and many more about Superman and the Justice League, and these other heroes she once encountered in real life.

 

   “Cross dimensional psionics,” says Rhulan a few weeks later while in her private chambers, “do not explain how they could be anticipating events to come, the year differentials might, like events that did happen…but then they prepared for events that were likely to happen…but…no…the goddess……that Presence…what did that geek call it…the writers? No….”

 

   She tosses the book down, “A Dream World….of course! The retcons, the way the popular heroes survive and keep coming back. It’s not a universe that influences the books, if it were the stories would be similar but not so damned close. The Presence, the force that molds that universe must be the writers….somehow this universe and anything in it at the time must be influenced by the cross-dimensional mental influence of those writing its world. That is why the timeline was so…off. But that means…”

 

    She eyes the books with a vicious stare that would make the bravest of generals in her army turn pale, “I….was influenced, they had plans for me, but as I moved outside their influence I could no longer be influenced so reality had to correct for that, make excuses for that. My actions while there…this is why I just left, why I fought with kid gloves….why even after returning I didn’t do what I originally sought to do and instead fought these idiots like I did…”

 

   She begins to glow with an un-earthly azure light, “I am Rhulan the Sorceress! I am the Empress of Aesperia! I have slayn thousands upon thousands, armies of robots, demons, monsters, aliens, I have punched out gods for crying out loud! I will NOT allow this injustice! NO mortal writers influence me!”

 

   Upon her face came a most wicked smile, a dark smile, a look of pure evil geniuse flowed through her eyes, oh this plan, this perfect plan, the perfect revenge, for she knew in that instant the exact spells she needed.

 

   “Puppet strings,” whispers Rhulan, her voice cringing fate, “the puppet shall guide the hand….*she bursts into terrifying maniacal laughter*.

 

     ******

 

   Stately Wayne manner, a practical landmark outside of Gotham City; tonight hosting a charity event for local orphans. The atmosphere is as one would expect from the wealthy lost out of time, pearl necklaces, suits, fancy jewelry, and all there for an art auction to raise money for orphans as well as basically being a party where all the proceeds go to charity. The scene is violently interrupted by Rhulan smashing through the ceiling like a comet, through the second floor and hovering above the party. She pays no heed to the screaming and frightened party guests or the man below demanding to know who she is. Instead she looks around, searching, and with a smile dives straight down through the floor, destroying wood and stone as she smashes through into a large cave. The light flicker a moment as she lands. There the man known as bat-man is surprised; as surprised as the Bat-man can display.

 

   “Who…” Batman stops the woman is familiar, but in a vague fuzzy kind of way.

 

  “Stop right there!” shouts Batman noticing her walk nonchalantly over to the vault.

 

  He leaps over intending to grab her only for her to vanish an appear behind him, she grabs his cape and flings him away like a ragdoll. He rolls a moment, a moment long enough for Rhulan’s hands to glow with an unearthly blue flame and melt through the locks on the vault as easily as a hot knife through butter. He throws a bat-a-rang, it stops in mid-air as Rhulan opens the vault and falls to the ground, her looking over her shoulder the only indication she did anything to cause that.

 

  Batman runs over to the computer and types in the emergency Batcave lock down. Unfortunatly as fast as he did this Rhulan is faster, he turns around to see she *zipped* into and out of the vault, knowing exactly where to look somehow (a somehow to him, a cheated using comicbooks for her) to find a glowing green rock she now holds in her hand.

 

  “Oblivion Summance,” says Rhulan, summoning a blue and white sparkling cyclone around and vanishing.

 

    ******

 

    (Later at the hall of Justice)

 

   Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman, and Red Tornado are gathered together before the monitor watching footage from the Wayne Manner’s closed circuit cameras.

 

  “She does seem vaguely familiar,” says Superman, “but I can’t put my finger on who she is.”

 

   “This new villain is now found in any of the world wide crime records,” says Red Tornado.

 

  “Perhaps,” says Batman, “she isn’t someone new, nor in the current crime records.”

 

   “You’re thinking a later Unification Event fragment?” asks Wonder Woman.

 

  “I believe so,” says Batman, “given that we seem to have a vague recollection of this individual, despite no existing criminal record, and she clearly knew where she was going and where to find it.”

 

   “The kryptonite fragment,” says Superman.

 

  “Exactly,” says Batman, “no one without memories of the Batcave or us could have known I keep a piece of kryptonite, let alone where to find it.”

 

   Superman puts his hand on the Hall of Justice computer, making a secret panel open and white orb ascend.

 

   “Unification database, analyze this image.”

 

  “Image Analyzed,” says a woman’s voice, “Identity found, Rhulan the Celestial Sorceress, appeared in two previous timelines. Not affected by the unification event, an outsider to the DC universe.”

 

   “Marvel?” asks Wonder Woman.

 

  “No,” says the computer, “searching, only multiverse records are a legal snafu as the term goes, an indy character created in the 1950’s by a feminisit magazine featuring a story about fighting the Justice League. This story was picked up and altered by the official release causing three different mental overlaps in the Unification Event, effectively fuzzing the memory to none-existent. Second Official appearance was in the next time line, nearly destroyed the DC universe by using external magical forces beyond the then fragile universe’s temporal structure.”

 

 

    “I see,” says Superman, “so…she was a villain against one of my past selves?”

 

   “Data shows,” says the computer, “she was an anti-hero…potentially, appearance was too short, due to legal problems with Marvel, the original feminist magazine, and an indy writer online who all believed they invented the character and could back up the claim, she was never used again despite plans. What little there is indicates some animosity between her and the following heroes; Superman, Dr. Fate, and The Spectre.”

 

    The monitor switches over to the image of Rhulan sitting upon a throne with a giant black with red glowing lines female golem on one side, and a white with black stripes tiger like cat-girl on the other side.

 

    “I am Empress Rhulan, ruler of the world of Aesperia.” she says,

 

   “How did she override the Unification Computer?” starts Superman,

 

   “Its more than that,” says Red Tornado, “I am picking up the transmission as well, somehow it is being sent to all communication devices.”

 

    Aquaman bends over in pain, “in…my telepathy…Atlantian magic wave…a tsunami of imagery.”

 

   Batman just narrows his eyes.

 

   “People of the Earth,” continues Rhulan, “your world is nothing more than a fabrication created in a psychomantic pool, a well of thought in a pocket universe, governed not by higher powers, but the will of mere mortals.”

 

   “She knows,” says Batman.

 

   “I however am not part of your pathedic reality, and yet long ago when I came here my actions were manipulated, controlled, limited, by mere mortals all for the sake of your precious Mary Sue,”

 

   Superman narrows his eyes, they glow red for a moment.

 

   “Superman,” she continues, “your man of steel, the term really should be a Superman, and not a Mary Sue, to think I have found psycholink books written about me that dare call me such a term. Do things always turn out for the best for me? Does everyone end up loving me regardless of what I do all because I apologize, or prove some assasine juvenile point about justice and kindness and all that rot? No! Or better yet, lets put it this way about your precious little hero, things change for him. Ask yourselves, what happens to his deadliest enemies? They become weaker, he suddenly gains without trying some new power, or something comes to him oh so conviently to teach him how to win, or those threats are locked away. The only consistent threat is a glowing rock, and even that gets swept away when it gets over used.”

 

   She pauses a moment, “I came to a past iteration of your world peacefully, and was attacked by your so called heroes, worst of all by Superman, you may call him your savior, I saw the bloodlust in his eyes. The anger at facing someone that wouldn’t roll over for him, that there was no immediate solution for defeating…or he was a total homophobe because I was hitting on Supergirl…anywho…when I returned to your world, we fought again, heh…your pathedically weak universe nearly perished thanks to your Spectre and Dr. Fate forcing my hand, but that is the way of Psychopool world’s, mere constructs of thought….but there in lies the problem, a moment later my power was limited, told by the very essence of your world I would no longer have access to those powers able to outright threaten your higher echelon of heroes…nerfed as they say…all because some human writers apparently couldn’t think of a way around the issue of Superman facing magic whose rules exist outside of your universe’s confines. For the sake of my honor and dignity as the Empress and Goddess of Aesperia, I challenge Superman to a duel, to be held three days from now on top of the Daily Planet, at this exact time.”

 

   The transmission ends.

 

   “That was more a rant than a threat,” says Wonderwoman, “but she does sound pissed. Honor can be a strong motivator when you feel it’s been slighted.”

 

   “I’m going,” says Superman, “She’s too dangerous not to be stopped, since the Unification Event those limitors can’t still be in place,”

 

   “Our Universe isn’t so fragile anymore,” says Batman, “Marvel, Mortal Kombat, Top Cow, Capcom, and many others from those and more worlds have come and challenged us since our respective universes have had their own Unification Events. Magic and cosmic forces that should have destroyed the fabric of our universe, didn’t.”

 

    “That’s not the point,” says Superman, “she doesn’t think of our world like those others do, we’re fake to her. What’s to stop her from coming after all of us, just to feel better about herself? Or to think its all just a game that will be undone by the next retcon, for some writer to call it a “What if” story or a dream we had. No, she has to be stopped now; and only I can do it.”

 

   “You know it’s a trap Clark,” says Batman.

 

  “I know,” says Superman, “but she doesn’t know that I am every Superman combined.”

 

    ******

 

    (three days later)

 

 

    The show down begins, before the Daily Planet Sign stands Superman and across the way Rhulan.

 

   “Surrender now and…” starts Superman.

 

   “Just shut up and die,” says Rhulan summoning a massive green sigil in front of her, the energy of which brings superman to his knees.

 

   “Impossible,” caughs superman…how…I scanned…for kryptonite..

 

  “Crystal Barrage!” shouts Rhulan.

 

  Time is slowed down for superman as he sees what Rhulan was spending her time creating, crafting a new hybrid spell, combining crystal barrage with the energy of kryptonite, as the green shards fly straight for his face, just before they can stab him right in his mug, a green barrier forms in front of him, the crystals bouncing off of it.

 

  Hal Jordan of the Green Lantern corp has come to Superman’s rescue.

 

  “Hal,” says Superman righting himself, the barrier blocking the radiation.

 

  “No!” screams Rhulan, the very air shacking with her rage, her barrier grows larger and green cracks appear around it, ripping into the very fabric of reality, Hal Jordan is now forced to block with all his ring’s might as the crystals fly out at nearly the speed of light, shredding into the building, and around the barrier forcing Hal Jordan to make a force bubble as the crystals now try and seek out their target, some even partially piercing the bubble, just enough for their radiation to keep superman from acting.

 

   “Damn you!” yells Rhulan, her eyes turning solid green with electric arks shooting from them, “You can’t do that! Never before could your barrier block my magic! Its not in its nature! Gods damned lazy writers! You will not deny me! I will not be limited! I will not be held back by the figmentations of mere humans!!! Aaahhhhh!”

 

   She glows like an aurora, the very air around her crackles, rips in reality form in the sky, glowing red. Hal Jordan’s super ring barrier can not hold against the assault as two shards pierce through, one stabs Superman in the shoulder, the other in his gut, just as the barrier is about to fully fail, something miraculous happens. A portal forms behind Rhulan and black tendrils shoot out, one wraps around her waist, another her chest, and one around her throat. This last one makes her lose her concentration dropping her spells; however it also fully pisses her off as she bares her teeth and grabs at the throat choking tendril, her cape even forms into thorny tendrils of its own and tries to wrestle with those wrapping around her creating a visual mess like black cables and spaghetti. She is yanked through the portal, her last visual of the DC universe superman lying on the ground bleeding with kryptonite crystals stabbed into him.

   

    ******

 

   “NOOOOO!!!” screams Rhulan as she tries to kick and punch, practically foaming at the mouth like a wild beast as her eyes flash all manner of different colors, a rainbow of crazy and arcane powers fly off her power in all directions, raw destructive, reality shredding energies. She is held tight however, not by tentacles, or tendrils, but rather by a warm hug. A pair of arms clad in black, or made of darkness themselves, holding her tight against a shapely body with large pale breasts pressed into Rhulan’s back wearing a black dress sparkled with starlight. This woman with a pale face resembling Rhulan’s own yet with eyes of pure blue flames and long black hair waving of its own accord that seems to become part of her formal gown as they meet and flow off into an unseeable ether behind them while infront of them is a place of waving blue calmness.

 

   “No!” screams Rhulan, “I am Rhulan the Sorceress! Tens of thousands of years old! I have slayn Elder Gods, conquered worlds, destroyed and created entire civilizations! I am a goddess! I will not be bested by paper dolls invented by mere humans! Raahhh!”

 

   She continues to kick and swing about wildly, ranting as she does, her released energy means nothing to the one holding her, although such power would desomate just about anything else known to man or god.

 

   *Are you done?* asks the one holding her as Rhulan calms down, and pants.

 

  *Got that out of your system?*

 

  “Uh…heh…heh…heh..” huffs Rhulan.

 

  She stops and looks behind her, “Let me go.”

 

  *Very well* says the entity releasing her.

 

 “I…got him,” says Rhulan smiling.

 

  *Yes* says the entity, *you killed Superman, the Unified Superman, symbol of Justice and force for good across the multiverse*

 

  “Unified?” asks Rhulan.

 

  *The real Superman* says the entity *the one true one, the weight of the fake timelines collapsed into themselves from all the variants both true and invented to become true, collected into that world. This was truly an act of ultimate evil*

 

   “I am not evil,” says Rhulan, “I simply am…we’ve discussed this before.”

 

  *The balance of the multi-verse* says the entity *has come undone, as the one who killed such a high end…piece on the side of good, you must likewise destroy an equal amount of power on the side of evil*

 

   “and I guess those eldritch horrors from back in the day don’t count?” asks Rhulan.

 

  *those are beyond good and evil…but you have fallen from that lofty position and must right the balance in the well of figmentations.*

 

  Rhulan shrugs, “fine, I don’t care honestly. Just had to get that crap out of my subconscious anyway, so fine, I’ll pay your toll for killing that paper doll by killing more mortal inventions.”

 

   *Very well* says the entity, *your first target will be a monster called Chucky*

 

(and so it was that Rhulan’s horror battle commenced anew as penance for killing the man of steel, little did she know however that things were not as they seemed)

 

   Back in the DC Unified Universe, in the Watch Tower, that space station that floats in orbit above Earth, in a hospital bed, Superman is hooked up to a machine, bandages across his chest and gut, breathing through a machine as Hal Jordan, Martian Manhunter, Wonderwoman, Supergirl, and Batman look on.

 

   “He is stabilized, he is however in a coma.” says the Star Labs doctor, “We got all the kryptonite out of him, we are still analyzing it however, we’ve never encountered magic kryptonite before, no telling its effects on Kryptonian physiology.”